Read on to learn more about Mike, his full-time staff, and day-to-day operations at their warehouse in Texas, USA.
I’m Mike Moreno, owner of ACE of BRICKS. I am an avid toy collector and have always been passionate about LEGO. I was a regular BrickLink user until I opened my store in 2010. I currently work with three full-time staff members: Sarah Salter, Sarah Harral, and Ken Dean. Sarah S. has been with me for three years and has recently begun serving as our operations manager. Both Sarah H. and Ken came on board in early 2016 when we moved to a new and bigger space.
I bought on BrickLink for a number of years before I opened my store. After the birth of my first child in 2007, I bought a couple of LEGO sets to keep myself busy while the baby slept. During that time, I regularly purchased pieces on BrickLink to complete used sets. After displaying my builds for a couple of years, I sold them and turned a profit. That sparked the idea to open my own BrickLink store, and in 2010 ACE of BRICKS was born. BrickLink was the perfect solution when I needed to offload a lot of bulk lots and random parts that I’d collected.
In the beginning, my store inventory consisted of only 25,000 parts, mostly from my personal collection. By the end of 2010, I grew my inventory to more than 250,000 parts.
In the early days, I stored the inventory and ran shop operations out of my garage, which was very uncomfortable during hot Texas summers. When we moved to a larger home several years ago, I was able to move operations indoors, but space was still very limited.
This July, we purchased a small warehouse close to home. The bigger space meant that I could organize my entire inventory in one open space, rather than in separate rooms, making operations much more efficient. It also allowed me to grow my business by adding two more staff members (Sarah H. and Ken). Moving the business to its own dedicated space was a dream come true. I feel a huge sense of accomplishment every time I drive up to the shop.
On a typical day, Sarah Salter, who heads operations, arrives early in the morning to start off the day. She sends invoices and quotes for orders that came in overnight, answers customer questions, and takes care of any unresolved issues. An hour later, Sarah H. and Ken arrive and begin picking orders. The team usually spends Mondays fulfilling orders all day long. On other weekdays, they strive to complete orders in the morning and spend the rest of the day sorting and logging parts. I spend a lot of my time buying used bulk, pricing inventory, and setting priorities for my team.
Shop organization continues to evolve as I continue to add parts. In our new location, the shop is filled with shelves that contain bins organized down to the unique part number. Parts that are often ordered in bulk are stored in bags containing 100 parts. The bins are organized in aisles, with the most popular parts closest to the employees’ workstations. Each employee fills orders with a cart outfitted with a computer, shipping supplies, bubble mailers, and more.
When we used to run the shop out of our home, our staff had very little room to move around and pick orders. We had to walk back and forth to the desk to drop off parts and look at the computer monitor to see the next part on the list. For us, this whole process was inefficient and also left a lot of room for error.
I came up with the idea of using carts as a mobile workstation that my staff could use to pick orders and prepare for shipping all in one spot. This greatly reduces the likelihood of dropping or misplacing parts. The wide aisles in our warehouse allow us to drive the carts like you would in a grocery store, which allows us to pick orders much faster and more efficiently. We no longer have to return to the desk for any reason during the order picking process. Each cart has a laptop so staff can refer back to the part list when necessary, without having to print anything out. This saves time, money, and trees!
I will pass along the same advice that I received when I first opened ACE of BRICKS. After the first full week of business in 2010, I received a very polite email from one of the first customers. She received the order including one part that was a bit more scratched than she anticipated. Instead of asking for a refund or a new part, she told me “Try not to sell anything you wouldn’t want to receive.” Her statement still echoes in my mind to this day. I now carefully inspect each and every piece for sale in my shop and train my staff to ensure that quality remains a top priority. Since that initial interaction, that customer has placed a total of 44 orders with ACE of BRICKS. People like her make BrickLink a true community.